The Chinese New Year Celebration

It's the Year of the Boar!

The Chinese New Year is just a couple of weeks away; it will be the Year of the Boar. Since I've been involved in tea, I have cultivated a greater interest in the celebrations and the people in tea producing countries and China is certainly one of my favorites.

I am always intrigued by the rituals of generations past and impressed by the continued importance placed on family in China. I believed that my ideas on how the New Year is celebrated evolved from movies I had seen as a youngster and more recently books and articles that I have read, mostly legend as opposed to reality.

We celebrate the Chinese New Year here at Teas Etc with a festive open house. The New Year begins on Sunday February 18th so our event will take place that day with traditional food, decorations and authentic tea demonstrations. We always have a great time and many people look forward to the annual event. But as my ties with China are closer than ever, I wanted to make this year's celebration as culturally accurate as possible.

So to learn more about what really goes on in China, then and now, I decided to talk with Amy Zhang who runs our Shanghai office. Amy was kind enough to share with me her personal memories and experiences about the New Year and her candid sentiments on how this special tradition has changed.

Due to the length of this month's newsletter and the various topics covered we felt that it would be more convenient for our subscribers to provide links.
Just click on any of the links below to read about the many aspects we have covered on the Chinese New Year.

Amy reflects on her childhood, spending the New Year as a child with her grandmother and how different the celebrations are today.